Damned if they do

A few months ago, George Stephanopoulos interviewed Markos (of the Daily Kos) and me for a documentary he was putting together. When we got to the issue of the MSM’s future, I suggested that its best hope might well be to re-establish credibility through objective, non-partisan news reporting that could serve as a core product around which all sorts of edgy bloggers and other opinion-mongers could revolve. After all, objectivity and non-partisanship is the one thing bloggers will always be hard-pressed to provide, and news gathering is the one service bloggers cannot provide now.
Stephanopoulus responded by turning to Kos and stating (I quote from memory) “but you guys won’t let that happen.” Kos modestly affirmed that he wouldn’t. Stephanopoulos’s response was both perceptive and revealing. Perceptive because left-wing bloggers certainly intend to pressure the MSM into, at a minimum, maintaining its current level of liberal bias. Tom Bevan at Real Clear Politics and Stephen Spruiell at NRO’s Media Blog highlight this reality in discussing blogger attacks on the Washington Post, Chris Matthews, and Tim Russert.
Stephanopoulos’s comment was revealing because of its assumption that leftist bloggers hold the power to constrain the MSM. Bevan explains why one could believe that Kos and his ilk have that power when he observes, “The mainstream press, which already leans to the left, can